Schwartz and the team know they still have a long way to go before the regular season opener on Sept. 8.

Offensively?

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"We can do a lot of different things better,'' Schwartz said.

Even without Calvin Johnson in the lineup, the Lions offense should have more of a rhythm. The starters played the first half.

Once again Reggie Bush was a standout with five catches for 103 yards and six rushes for one yard.

Matthew Stafford played sound, but it's clear he was missing Johnson.

Stafford connected on less than half of his attempts (12 of 25). He finished with 166 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions.

The quarterback is not concerned about the offense.

"I think we're moving in the right direction,'' Stafford said. "We were down a big play-maker in our offense tonight and our defense knew that, showed up and played great. It's about the team, man. It was a team win tonight.''

The Lions had to settle for field goals or attempts three times when they were in the red zone -- twice at Patriots' 13 and once at the 5-yard line.

Reggie Bush was the go-to guy with five catches for 103 yards and six rushes for one yard.

His 67-yard pass play set up the first field goal. Bush's only disappointment was that he couldn't take it all the way.

The Lions would not have held the 16-3 half-time lead without the four turnovers created by the defense.

"We were opportunistic particularly early in the game,'' Schwartz said. "We need to get more points off them. Turnovers were coming a lot of different ways -- interceptions, some forced contact. I thought defense did a good job with those.''

Of course Patriots' coach Bill Belichick was not too pleased.

"Look, anytime you turn the ball over four times your chances of winning in this league are not very good," Belichick said, "And when you do it in the first quarter on the road, I'm sure they're even less. It doesn't really make any difference what happened in any other game, or any other week. It doesn't matter. What happened tonight, happened tonight. We turned it over. We put ourselves in a hole and we got beat.''

The first turnover was a fumble forced by Glover Quin and recovered by Louis Delmas on the Patriots' first possession. However, an unsportsmanlike conduct call on Nick Fairley cost seven yards.

The Lions took over on their own five and drove 90 yards downfield where they had to settle for a field goal.

On the Patriots' third possession, DeAndre Levy forced a fumble that was recovered by Jason Jones. A personal foul on Detroit's C.J. Mosley cost the Lions nine yards.

Then Tom Brady was intercepted by Chris Houston on New England's next possession giving the Lions the ball at the Patriots' 37.

A touchdown pass from Stafford up the middle to Tony Scheffler was the Lions' starting offense's first touchdown of the preseason. It gave the Lions a 10-0 lead.

Early in the second quarter, Bill Bentley forced a fumble when Shane Vereen was carrying the ball. Ezekiel Ansah recovered and on the next possession, David Akers kicked a 31-yard field goal to give Lions a 13-3 lead.

Akers missed a 31-yard field goal and was booed loudly, but redeemed himself with a 49-yarder to give Lions 16-3 half-time lead.

"It's a good start (on turnover). I mean you've got to start somewhere,'' Ndamukong Suh said. "We obviously haven't done it as much in the previous year and the first two preseason games. It's a good start especially in an important game where the majority of the starters are playing and the younger guys followed it up and got some stuff done as well.''

Kellen Moore started the second half as quarterback. On his first drive he connected with rookie tight end Joe Fauria on a 22-yard touchdown pass to boost the lead to 23-3. He also threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Micheal Spurlock.